The Library Journal has just given Mike Resnick’s Ivory: A Legend of Past and Future
a starred review. They say the novel, about a search across time and space for the tusks of the legendary Kilimanjaro elephant, “plays to his greatest strengths–as a raconteur without peer, capable of weaving together a series of linked stories into a seamless whole, and as a compassionate and thoughtful observer of the human condition. Peopled with gamblers, warlords, artists, and politicians and overseen by the shadow of the enormous creature who once ruled the grasslands of Africa… highly recommended for all sf collections.”
The Library Journal has just given Mike Resnick’s Ivory: A Legend of Past and Future
After reading the two Starship novels (and Eros Ascending), this is one I am definitely going to check out.
Well, Mike’s Kirinyaga tales rank collectively as one of my all time favorite stories in genre, so anytime he goes back to Africa, I sit up and listen. I really, really LOVED this book, which is really something. It’s also structurally VERY interesting.
The structure was suggested by James Michener’s THE SOURCE. It took me better than 30 years to find a subject that lent itself to that kind of structure, but the moment I conceived IVORY I knew I could apply it there (and it remains the only one of my 50+ novels where it would have worked.)
I might add that IVORY got a favorable review from Library Journal 19 years ago, and today it got a starred review. Clearly this is a book that improves with age. 😉
Mike Resnick